Week 5: Reading Response

I have to say that I loved "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" but definitely not as much as "Memories."

I feel like they are both excellent, stylistically. I love how the Frank Sinatra piece leads the reader along with the evident complexity of Sinatra: one minute he is the most generous friends you could ever hope to have, the next he is on the verge of a bar fight with a complete stranger.

There is definitely the sense of Sinatra's own desire to stay....I'm not sure of the word....young? in charge? new and famous? There is some sort of tension there that I can't really pin down, but I get the sense that that is a part of the reason why this article is so successful - because it really seems to find the tension and that is what runs through the piece to keep it going.

Along that same line, the images of Sinatra reflect this - I love the image of Sinatra standing by the bar, with the two older (and Talese makes a point of mentioning that fact) blondes. Its like that saying "A picture is worth a thousand words" - that image sums up the tension of the story - you have this once-fabulous icon, and....well....more than having a cold, he is getting OLD and fading. That really stuck with me.

"Memories" was an absolutely beautifully crafted story. Honestly, it made me cry, but I think that that is a part of what makes it so effective - it really reaches the reader. The part about Ted waiting endlessly for his wife was so parallel with the point of the story, and he was the perfect character to put it there. In sort of a dark way, it reminded me that - well, what ARE these people waiting for? And the answer seems to be that their days are filling with endless waiting for nothing, the only amusement being dictionary definitions.

Finally, I think the fragmented structure of the story really works - Kidder doesn't just stick with one character - he breaks it up. Which is, afterall, much like memory itself works - broken anecdotes.